Seven years ago, the Houston Astros were in a similar situation to the one the Orioles are in now.

The Astros ended a brutal rebuild the previous year as the biggest surprise in Major League Baseball, winning 86 games and making the postseason in 2015. The Orioles nearly did the same in 2022, climbing out of the rebuild instituted by some of the same people who operated Houston’s, by winning 84 games and nearly defying the odds to make the playoffs.

The natural result of winning more games is a worse position in the draft, and the first time that Astros regime had to pick outside the first round’s top five, the result details the unpredictable nature of the draft. In 2016, the Astros selected high school pitcher Forrest Whitley with the 17th pick and have since watched the right-hander go from the sport’s top pitching prospect to an injury-prone 25-year-old with an 8.04 career ERA in Triple-A.

Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias was Houston’s amateur scouting director at the time, and many of his duties were tied to the draft. Now, he’s in the same spot with Baltimore that the Astros were seven years ago — picking outside the top five for the first time with the No. 17 pick.

While a top-five selection is far from a guarantee to become an everyday major leaguer, the odds for the 17th pick are even worse, and Whitley is a recent example. After he was drafted, the 6-foot-7 pitcher shot up prospect rankings as he posted elite strikeout numbers, but he missed most of the 2018 season with a suspension for violating the league’s drug prevention and treatment program. He was still ranked No. 5 by Baseball America entering 2019, the highest pitcher on the list, but he’s thrown just 129 2/3 innings with a 7.01 ERA in the four and a half years since. He missed time in 2019 with shoulder discomfort, had the 2020 campaign taken because of the coronavirus pandemic, sat out all of 2021 and most of 2022 as he recovered from Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery and has been out since late May with a lat muscle strain.

Whitley’s struggles aren’t a cautionary tale about the ability to draft a future valuable major leaguer at No. 17, but rather an example for how the draft is, as cliche as it is to say, a crapshoot. To illustrate that, here’s a by-the-numbers look at the historical successes and failures of the MLB draft’s 17th overall picks.89 2/3

Only once since 1965 have the Orioles owned the No. 17 pick. In 1969, they drafted left-handed pitcher Don Hood out of high school, and he went on to pitch just 89 2/3 innings with Baltimore. He reached the majors at 23 years old, pitched in 28 games for the Orioles between 1973 and 1974 and was traded along with Boog Powell to Cleveland in exchange for Dave Duncan before the 1975 campaign. Hood went on to pitch eight more seasons with Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis and the New York Yankees, amassing a career 5.3 wins above replacement on Baseball-Reference.

65.5%

In 36 of the 55 drafts between 1965 and 2019 — or 65.5% — the player taken No. 17 overall made it to the major leagues. That rate is quite high, but it’s much worse than the 94.4% rate for No. 1 overall picks during that same timeframe. However, as Elias said Thursday, “making the majors is not the end-all of a successful draft pick.” The average WAR for the No. 17 picks who made the majors was 9.2, and there are more players with a WAR below 1.0 (13) than those above 10.0 (11).

4

Four No. 17 picks have played in the major leagues this season: Seattle Mariners outfielder AJ Pollock, Colorado Rockies first baseman C.J. Cron, Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson and Cincinnati Reds rookie Matt McLain. While Pollock and Anderson have struggled this year, those two veterans and Cron have been solid major league players for years, all posting above-average numbers to amass a combined WAR of 54. Nearly 16% of the total WAR from No. 17 picks have come from those three players.

673

McLain, meanwhile, could become one the most successful No. 17 picks if he continues on his current trajectory. The Reds drafted McLain two summers ago out of UCLA, and the 23-year-old zoomed through the minor leagues to reach the majors in just 673 days. After putting up impressive numbers in the minors, McLain made his MLB debut May 15 and has since hit .294 with an .873 OPS.

23

McLain was called up too late to be considered for the All-Star Game, but Pollock, Anderson and Cron have all made appearances in the Midsummer Classic, and so have six other No. 17 picks. The total number of All-Star seasons from those nine players is 23.

Undoubtedly the best player to be drafted 17th overall, Hall of Famer Roy Halladay (1995, Toronto Blue Jays) accounts for eight of those All-Star appearances and his 64.2 WAR makes up nearly 20% of the pick’s overall WAR. Left-hander Cole Hamels (2002, Philadelphia Phillies) is next on the list with four All-Star nominations, and right-hander Charles Nagy (1988, Cleveland) follows with three. Reliever Brad Lidge (1998, Astros), outfielder Gary Matthews (1968, San Francisco Giants) and outfielder Jeromy Burnitz (1990, New York Mets) are the other three No. 17 picks who became All-Stars.

50%

Over the past four drafts, the Orioles have displayed a clear preference for taking position players with their top picks. Elias & Co. have yet to draft and sign a pitcher earlier than the fifth round. If history is the only measure, though, the Orioles taking a pitcher with the 17th pick would be a coin flip, as 29 of the 58 No. 17 selections have been pitchers. That figure is 19 points higher than the percentage for No. 1 picks, which the Orioles used last year on shortstop Jackson Holliday.

While some mock drafts have projected the Orioles to take high school shortstop Arjun Nimmala and TCU third baseman Brayden Taylor, others have suggested Baltimore could go after University of Florida right-hander Hurston Waldrep or high school two-way player Bryce Eldridge.